"No art, no cleverness, no conversation on the theme, no subtlety, no beauty: just a brute stomping. The man behind the Buddhist costume can do no more than reveal himself. And he does not appreciate what I do for him! my service to him!"

"Oh now Hermes. Calm down. It takes endless repetition, endless shifting of tactics to get through to someone like that. Be patient, Sire."

Alex Jacob wrote:It takes endless repetition, endless shifting of tactics to get through to someone like that. Be patient.....

You just don't get the drift of things, Alex. And it may be very likely that you never will. But if you do happen to undergo a radical shift of consciousness and then make a decision to get serious about all this feel free to drop me a line.

Meaningful & truthful without the fancy footwork? I don't know if you'll accept my 'answer', or the means of that answer:

I am not he.I am he,Who walks at my side without my seeing him,Who at times I am about to see,Who, at times, I forget.He, who is silent, serene when I am speaking;He, who pardons gently when I am hating;He, who walks where I am not,He, who shall stand erect when I am dead.

---Juan Ramon Jimenez 'Eternidades' / 1916-1917

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SOUTH

Sharp nostalgia, infiniteAnd terrible, for what I already possess!

---Juan Ramon Jimenez 'Poesia' / 1917-1923

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Although you'll consider this 'footwork' I find stories an excellent way to communicate meaning. Tell me what you think:

Long ago, Coyote was going along and coming to the top of a ridge he noticed a man taking his eyes out of his head and throwing them up, up in the air into the branches of a cottonwood tree. Those eyes'd hang there until he shouted out 'Eyes Come Back!" At which point his eyes would snap back into his head like on rubber bands. Coyote, needless to say, was very impressed and desired to learn this trick. He begged and he begged the man to teach him how to do it. "But do be careful, Coyote" the man warned. "Don't do this more than FOUR TIMES A DAY!"

"No, of course not", answered Coyote. "Why in the heck would I do that?"

When the man left, Coyote took out his eyeballs and threw them up, up into the cottonwood tree. Oh, what a vantage his eyes now had! He could see for miles, there above the rolling hills that went on and on. When he had performed this four times, he thought: "What that man told me is the rule of his country. I don't think it applies here to this, my country". So, he threw his eyeballs up in the cottonwood tree for the fifth time and cried out "Eyes Come Back!" but of course they didn't come back.

[Now, Kunga we'll take a little break for a minute. That Coyote! Always getting into a jam. Oh, about that movie, I admit to being a little charmed that you'd even think of me outside this written space. The storyline had less to do with a writer, though, and more to do with a man who takes Satan's bargain, don't you think? Okay, back to the story! Let's see how it turns out, okay?]

So, poor Coyote stumbled along, bumping into things, falling down hills, stepping into gopher holes. When he couldn't think any more on his problem he lay down and went to sleep. Soon a field mouse came along (whose name was Dennis as unbelievable as that sounds) and thinking Coyote was dead began to snip little bits of his fur to make a cosy little nest. When Coyote woke up and discovered what was happening, he quickly snapped up the little mouse by the tail and began to moralize him. Growing tired of that, he asked mouse:

"Look up in that tree, Brother Mouse, do you see my eyes up there in that cottonwood?" "Yes", said Dennis the mouse, "They are all swollen because of the sun. They seem to be oozing a little, and the flies are landing on them!"

Dennis offered to retrieve the eyes but Coyote didn't trust him. "Give me one of your eyes", he told mouse, and mouse did so, Coyote putting the little black mouse eye in his own eye-socket. He could see a little better now, but had to walk funny with his head tilted to the side keep the eyeball from rolling out.

He stumbled through the cottonwood grove until he happened upon old Bob the Bison.

"What's the problem, Coyote?" he asked, and when he heard Coyote's story he offered him one of HIS eyeballs, which Coyote stuffed into the other socket, which weighed a great deal and caused him to list to one side even as he strove to hold his head to the other side to keep mouse's eye from falling out.

Well, 'made up' is sort of like how it happens: First, I am just sitting there listless. Then I feel a breath of fire and the Holy Spirit comes over me like a wave of 'conscious lava'. I become like unto a ceder ember and my eyelashes like unto burning filiments while I am lifted up to the throne of the Most High who welcomes me into His parlor. When I am in that state, certain ideas, snippets of sheer genius, lotto tips, as well as Coyote stories just come into my brain. I HEAR them and write them down as quick as I can. (I also once 'received' the design for a new type of vacuum cleaner!)

Dennis, could you state all over again your premises just so we know where we are at? I admit that I have gotten a little lost. I just want to get clear about what precisely I don't agree with you about. Then, we can resume the losing battle you are engaged in.

PS: Is it really possible NOT to reify the I? I just don't see how it is not (for all intents and purposes) possible unless one were to write like you:

not possible to reify I.I is false conglomeration.writing done, complete.not I not youcup of water from lake, mecup of water from lake, youmix together, divide into three cupswhere'd 'you' go? 'me'?dogs come by lap 'us' uprun away no one nowto stare at each otherastonished...satori!

That conventional existence is 'playing'.as Shakespeare mooted, 'all the world's a stage, we are but players 'pon it'.

You yourself have distinguished that Alex.

One's way of being is one's play. One's measure.

Causes/conditions have you Alex playing the hermes role 'caper and frolic'.Your flawed assumption is that a GF person lacks 'caper and frolic' and is 'dead'.I can assure you 'caper and frolic' is something I do in RL.

Play is action and gets a result.Bob plays in Bob's way to get a result.

Science is play, playing with the scientific method.Einstein played a leading role in Atomic Bomb and 'conscience' haunted him.Post war, Einstein tried to put the responsibility of 'Atomic Bomb' on politicians.Let the playing of science be the responsibility of another entity. The other entity is responsible for Wisdom.

What we have got now is 'playing' and 'playing with conscience' and 'playing wisely' and 'playing gets a result'.That distinction is immortalised in the story of the tortoise and the hare.

Your playing Alex plays 'taunt and mock, degrade, insult, torment, belittle' and the claim it gets a noble result doesn't ring true. I see that play run endlessly in schoolyard playgrounds from 10 year olds. It has a bitter edge. All it gets is 'ruffled feathers'. No well-being.

Recognising emptiness 'gets' playing as conscientious endeavour played wisely.The result it gets is harmony for human being.

It's not absolute.It's a possibility.A measure for action.A way of being.

Have a go at playing a version of 'caper and frolic' without depending on making some poor bastard the butt of a joke Alex.let's get some intelligence into play.

You are also, it would seem, quite a moralist! Truthfully, I find that brand of moralizing bothersome. You are aware that since Day One you have pursued me with that moral lesson, trying to force it down my gullet? May I tell you why I resist it?

In any case, I will make a few comments on 'emptiness' some time soon.

He who persists in trying to convince a fool of his foolishness becomes a fool himself. He too helps keep the fool's games going on and on and on to absolutely nowhere, except to feed the fools ego. And very likely his own ego too.

Well, 'made up' is sort of like how it happens: First, I am just sitting there listless. Then I feel a breath of fire and the Holy Spirit comes over me like a wave of 'conscious lava'. I become like unto a ceder ember and my eyelashes like unto burning filiments while I am lifted up to the throne of the Most High who welcomes me into His parlor. When I am in that state, certain ideas, snippets of sheer genius, lotto tips, as well as Coyote stories just come into my brain. I HEAR them and write them down as quick as I can. (I also once 'received' the design for a new type of vacuum cleaner!)

That's okay. Your genius originates from the basic space of phenomena.....it's all good !

Woe unto him who seeks to convince this fool of the Truth; for such an one shall become himself a fool! And beware of false prophets who crack jokes, upturn narratives, rend the fabric of preposterous facades!

Captain Bob, thank you for giving me the opportunity to help you with so much. It was really for me a pleasure so don't feel obliged. Although there is more, so much more, I have to offer, I understand that it has to be taken in bit by wonderful bit. I am here always and, of course, you know how to reach me. ____________________________________________________

One thing, Dennis, that will certainly help you is if you fully grasp that you and I have radically different goals and agendas. I am curious to know if you have defined your own. My impression of you thus far is that you certainly have goals. When I speak of your 'moralizing', what I mean is that the moralizing you 'rehearse' (since writing here is all performance and in that sense 'act') seems rather transparent. The 'moral conclusions' you arrive at are not sufficient for me, but this does not mean that I do not understand how such a morality arises or what its use and importance is. I do suggest---though you completely reject the suggestion---that you not take so much about 'me' (us?) at face value. I-we are rather a creation that arises because of you, for you, our 'gift' to you! I know that sounds absurd and that is why I place it in such ironical and high-camp terms (as was my fare-thee-well to Bob the Bison). I know that the way I conduct myself (even saying Bob the Bison, I sense, is deeply offensive to your moral project and you will likely focus on that and utterly neglect all else I am talking about, straight-up and in straight-up prose), that the way I conduct myself produces in you the desire to chastize and rebuke, but what I wish you to see is that this is more or less exactly what I desire. I find it really interesting when the flesh falls away from the skeleton, as it were, and one gets to glimpse the structure.

There are a few things: one is that I consider irony and parody far more effective tools for communication (and for moralizing, and I do completely acknowledge having a moralizing project, since any communication of Value and Meaning is in essence communication of 'morals', I mean they are so connected as to be wedded) than your head-on approach, with the 'moral indignation' that (seems to) attend your rehearsals, is to me empty and ineffective---ridiculous in truth---though I know that your moral position comes as a result of your own crisis and growth, and your emergence into the Buddhism you practice. I know too that you are internalizing those Values, which are also Goals, and it is not at all that I don't 'respect' them, or understand them.

But my goals and objectives in being involved in communication are, quite simply, radically different than your own. Why is it that you feel so strongly the need to chastize me? Have you thought that through? (And don't reverse this, as you often do, throwing the question back up at me in response: I am very aware of my own 'reasons', my goals and objectives, and as I have said many times my whole purpose is in expressing them, and while I express them, to clarify them, sharpen them as it were). But for what reason do you spend so much time chastizing me? What is your goal and objective in all this?

As to 'emptiness': What shall we do here? I think, act and live in terms of 'fullness' and not emptiness. I am not interested in eliminating 'story' (this invented 'theatre' you allude to with a quote from Shakespeare) because, having thought it through, regard 'story' as essential to the whole platform of existence. I am quite aware that monks and sages react against 'story' (the deliriousness and madness of human imagination) and seek (and find) a platform in an unchanging self (this is a wee bit 'romantic' as description but useful). I am much more interested in story that can be put to use (by the self). I accept the tragical nature of life in this realm and I do not see a solution for it, except that one 'take the bison by the horns' and operate one's life. I am stating what is my essential view. It is not a view that you are going to be able to change. This is the fundamental difference that separates our views, our activities, our aspirations. It is in this sense that I seek not to 'make the self disappear' or become transparent and irreal, but to strengthen the self by providing useful story! In my view, what we all need to do is not diminish self, but strengthen and augment self, purify self, give self tools for constructive action in the world. True, it all is wiped away byt the actions of time. There is nothing (that I can locate) that is stable. All of man's work, in the blink of the eye, will be wiped away. And if one looks on that platform where Life arose and consciousness played out, there will remain not a trace, just eternal silence. Another way to imagine it is to think of a house---the house you grew up in. Let us imagine that that old house was torn down some years back. Now, there is just 'nothing there'---emptiness! Where is registered all the bright activities of time that once flowed through that space? The mirrors that reflected people, generations, birth and death? The laughter, the smells of cooking, the drowsiness of long afternoons, the sighs you heard at night while the family slept, the groaning in the wood as the foundation settled?